The Delta Queen could come back home to Cincinnati. But she has four other serious suitors: Louisville; Sacramento, Calif.; New York’s Manhattan Island; and Chattanooga, Tenn., where the boat currently rests as a floating hotel.

To bring this steamboat to the city where it was owned locally from 1946 to 1985 will take money (an estimated $7 million), congressional action and the will of local politicians.

The team of potential investors, testing the waters of Louisville, Chattanooga and Cincinnati, is in town today to gauge interest in landing the floating National Historic Landmark. They’re meeting with city, county, Chamber of Commerce officials and representatives from JobsOhio, the state’s business development agency.

“We just want to save her,” said Cornel Martin, president and CEO of the investment team. The 53-year-old greater New Orleans man is the former spokesman for the steamboat when it was plying America’s inland waters.

“We want to go to whatever community wants her,” he said. “But it’s clear she has ties to Cincinnati.”

The Delta Queen was locally owned from 1946 to 1985. The last steamboat of its kind with a wooden superstructure accommodating passengers on overnight river cruises was rescued by the Queen City-based Greene Line in 1946, when the boat was a mothballed U.S. Navy transport ship sitting in San Francisco Bay.

Although the steamboat has changed ownership numerous times since 1985, its stern still bears the words: “Delta Queen, Port of Cincinnati, Ohio.”

Martin’s group estimates it will take $7 million to buy and renovate the 86-year-old vessel. He did not disclose the exact sale price. He did say, however, that the Queen is going for “significantly less” than the $4.75 million asking price for the boat when it went on sale in 2010.

The group is looking for economic development funds, Martin said, money that will be repaid by the investors.

One possible source: JobsOhio. It can give grants and low-interest loans as incentives by using the cash it gets from Ohio’s liquor revenue. It also works to connect businesses to tax credits. But it can’t give those on its own.

Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld is meeting with the investors this morning. He received a fact sheet from them in advance. The sheet claims the boat’s annual economic impact is $9.3 million a year, along with 171 jobs – 150 on the vessel and 21 corporate positions.

“It’s hard to argue with a project that you put $7 million into and then get back $100 million over a decade,” Sittenfeld said. “It taps Cincinnati’s heritage and its taps Cincinnati’s pride. There’s value in that, too.”

Martin laid out the timetable for this project: Acquire the vessel; secure a congressional exemption before the end of the year for the boat to run overnight cruises; restore it; and have the Delta Queen in operation for the 2014 river cruise season.

The congressional exemption is a significant hurdle. It has plagued the Delta Queen since 1966 when the Safety at Sea Law was passed. That prohibited boats with a wooden superstructure from carrying 50 passengers or more on overnight cruises on the sea and on America’s rivers. The Delta Queen received nine exemptions over the years to keep operating. The boat’s last exemption expired in 2008 and Congress did not renew it.

That’s why the boat ended up as a floating hotel in Chattanooga.

“The Delta Queen is a National Landmark and a treasured part of our community’s history,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Westwood. “She belongs in Cincinnati. And these meetings are an important first step in our effort to bring her home.”

Chabot introduced legislation in 2008 to have the Delta Queen’s exemption extended. It failed because elected officials raised questions over fire safety and disputes related to union representation of the ship’s crew.

Martin noted that his group has competition. The other interested parties see the boat as a dockside hotel in either Manhattan or Sacramento, where the Delta Queen was based after its launch in 1927.

“She would be lost to the river forever,” Martin said, “if either of these groups tried to acquire her.”

But where to put the Queen?

Willie F. Carden Jr., overseer of Cincinnati’s riverfront parks, would welcome the steamboat with open arms. And empty pockets.

Smale Riverfront Park would be a natural home for the boat. But, right now, Carden said, there’s nowhere and no wherewithal to put it.

Smale Riverfront Park

A planned dock by Paul Brown Stadium would be big enough to handle a big boat like the Delta Queen, he said. But that project (due to the lack of federal money) “is nowhere on the radar screen.”

At best, he added, “We might have the funds to build it ... three years from now.”

Carden said his department faces $1.5 million in budget cuts, layoffs and park closures.

“Having the Delta Queen back home in Cincinnati would be nice,” he said. “But with so many issues ahead of it, I don’t know how we could expect the taxpayer to pay for it.”

Carden refused, however, to dismiss the idea completely.

“I’m not going to give up on the Delta Queen coming back to Cincinnati,” he said. “I’ll keep pushing to make it happen.”

Cincinnati does have one cost advantage over the other cities.

If the boat docks here, it won’t have to go to the expense to change the sign above its paddle wheel. ■